Good morning. CIOs today need the ability to support business requirements that are changing at digital speeds. But there's an alternative to operating in full-time go-mode, which is to build the kind of IT organization that supports sudden, full-on sprints, on demand.

Guest contributors Jeanne G. Harris and Allan E. Alter ask what you would do if your CEO asked for a fully functioning IT infrastructure for a new line of business in a week. As unrealistic as this request sounds, CIOs should be ready to accept the challenge, as CEOs demand more agility from IT. Fortunately, IT is better placed than at any time to meet business requirements for agility and flexibility, but the answer doesn’t lay in technology and services alone. Harris and Alter offer “five unconventional principles” to help CIOs meet the IT-in-a-week deadline, starting with this advice from Albert Einstein: "If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding a solution."

CIOs should lead the digitization of business, says HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar. The global economic situation is dire, presenting huge opportunities for nimble and innovative organizations to beat the competition. But winning will require companies to embrace greater digitization of their business processes – a strategy best led by CIOs, Nayar tells CIO Journal. "Who in the company understands technology and business interface better than the CIO? Who understands process better than the CIO?… [CIOs should be the ones deciding] what digitization of the business should happen,” says Nayar.

Sometimes, agility is as much physical as a mental state. Yousuf Khan, CIO of business school Hult International, is trying to help students navigate their coursework, and become acclimated to new environments as they move from campus to campus in this international school, by providing iPads with custom-built apps that allow students to download chapters rather than textbooks, and to both consume and create content digitally. The work Khan has done so far has reduced the school's shipping, printing and logistics costs, as well as the number of textbooks students have to carry around. “Fundamentally, the iPad is perceived as a consumption device,” Khan tells CIO Journal. “We want to change that paradigm to make the iPad not just for consumption but for productivity.”

Getting ready to rumble. Transportation logistics company SP Plus Gameday is using sophisticated GPS-based technology to help ensure everyone gets where they need to as the Republican National Convention finally kicks off today. Mike Witte, managing director of event operations for SP Plus Gameday, wouldn't talk about specifics until after the convention ends for obvious security reasons. But he did explain how the company used "geofencing" to help organize the Vancouver Olympics, for which the company also provided logistical support.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

IBM buys its own human-resources software maker. IBM will acquire human-resources software maker Kenexa for $1.3 billion in cash. Kenexa can either automate a company's recruiting function, or it can take it over in an outsourcing relationship, using sophisticated tests and surveys that can help a company hire and train employees more effectively, write the WSJ's Spencer Ante and Shara Tibken. Kenexa also makes use of social networking, which IBM believes is high on the list of priorities for most chief executives, report the FT's David Gelles and Paul Taylor. The high price--a 42% premium over Kenexa’s Friday closing price—underscores the growing importance human-resource software plays in acquisition strategies. Last December, SAP bought SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion and in February Oracle acquired Taleo for $1.9 billion.

Another business software firm ponders an IPO. In the latest example of business software firms going public, virtualization technology company AppSense is talking to bankers about an IPO, reports the WSJ’s Telis Demos. The company's software is used to give customers more flexibility in granting remote access privileges to their employees. Business software has found recent success on Wall Street with companies such as ServiceNow and Splunk realizing share price increases of more than 50% since their respective IPOs earlier this year. People close to the AppSense deal say that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase are working on an IPO filing.

Business software maker goes private.Deltek, which makes application suites that companies uses to manage their businesses, has been purchased by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for close to $1.1 billion, IDG’s Chris Kanaracus reports. Customers should welcome the decision by one of the few remaining independent ERP vendors to go private because it removes the pressure of showing constant growth that comes with being a public company. Deltek’s customers include public sector agencies, many of which are facing substantial budget cuts. Analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research says the move should give Deltek “some breathing room.”

VMWare introduces 'cloud-in-a-box'.VMware kicked off its annual software developer confab Monday, announcing a number of products designed to provide businesses with tools allowing them to build private clouds that give them a level of computing power associated with the public cloud offerings from Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft, writes the New York Times’s Quentin Hardy.

IBM rolls out new mainframe. IBM is introducing Tuesday a new line of mainframe computers, adding yet another chapter to a remarkable story of technological longevity and business strategy, the NYT’s Steve Lohr reports. The new model, the zEnterprise EC12, improves the mainframe’s traditional strength of reliably and securely handling vast volumes of transactions. Longtime mainframe customers say the technology has done a good job keeping up with the times. Last year, Primerica, a financial services company, purchased its 19th mainframe in 30 years. CIO David Wade has worked for Primerica since its first mainframe arrived. With more than four million life insurance customers and more than two million investment-account clients, he said the company needs the reliable processing technology of the mainframe. “It works like nothing else,” Wade said.

Chip hurdles could trip up smartphones. Chip manufacturers have run into problems developing a new technique known as extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography. Tools based on the technology cost about twice as much as current machines—commanding price tags of more than $100 million each, by some estimates—and can't yet process chips quickly enough to be practical for high-volume manufacturing. Further delays in refining EUV could ripple through the electronics industry in the next several years, writes the WSJ’s Shira Tibken, making it too costly for many manufacturers to build more advanced chips and slowing progress of smartphones and computers.

Facebook can't stop annoying the Germans. Not long after a German agency said it would reopen an investigation into Facebook’s photo-tagging technology and policy, the country’s largest consumer group says the social network is giving away customer data through its new app center. It gave Facebook until Sept. 4 to fix the problem or face legal action. Reuters writes that Germany’s memory of how private data was put to use under the Nazis and later East Germany’s Stasi police makes the country particularly wary of any invasion of privacy.

Better get that mobile strategy in order. Mobile analytics firm Flurry says that the rate of adoption of iOS and Android devices world-wide is 10 times faster than the 1980s PC revolution and twice as fast as the Internet boom of the 1990s. The U.S. remains tops for the greatest number of active iOS and Android devices, but the rate of adoption is largest in emerging economies such as China, Brazil and Russia.

Apple seeks a U.S. sales ban on at least eight Samsung devices. On the heels of its big win in federal court over Samsung last week, Apple requested yesterday a U.S. sales ban on at least eight Samsung products, including various iterations of the Galaxy S II phone. Florian Mueller over at FOSS Patents notes that while the business impact of such a ban would be limited, Apple could push for an injunction with open-ended wording effectively banning “any product , even products that haven't been released yet, that infringes the same intellectual property in a way that is 'no more than colorably different'." Judge Lucy Koh has set a hearing for next month to deal with this request and other penalties, as well as a likely Samsung request to nullify Friday's verdict.

FAA reconsiders mobile device usage. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will look at allowing for more widespread use of smartphones and other electronic devices during flights. A working group, set to be established in the coming months, will meet for six months before making recommendations, Todd Shields reports for Bloomberg.

Howie is to AOL as Terry is to...? Businessweek’s Nick Summers wins the award for metaphor of the day, comparing AOL's traffic to the flattop haircut of NFL analyst Howie Long: “high but flat.” Despite doubts about its local news network, Patch, and other ventures, the Internet 1.0 dinosaur still manages to wring revenue out of traffic, he notes. Shares hit a high of $34.10 yesterday after the company announced plans to pass to shareholders $1.1 billion through a stock repurchase and dividend program. The tax-limiting move comes after AOL sold a number of patents to Microsoft several months ago for $1.1 billion.

Twitter backs claims of Occupy Wall Street protester. Twitter has appealed an April ruling in a New York City court that an individual tied to last year’s Occupy Wall Street protests hand over information on two Twitter handles appearing in his tweets. Among other arguments, Twitter says users have Fourth Amendment privacy rights in their accounts, writes GigaOm’s Jeff John Roberts.

Sony to exit disc-drive market. Sony will abandon its optical disc drive business, nearly completing a restructuring of unprofitable divisions it initiated after suffering huge losses in fiscal 2011, the Asahi Shimbun reports. Sony Optiarc holds a 10-15% share of the global market for optical disc drives, with tens of billions of yen in annual sales. But it has reported operating losses due to a shrinking market for notebook computers and intensifying price competition with overseas rivals.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

S&P/Case-Shiller home-price data for June is expected to show its first gain since September 2010. Ahead of the Tape’s David Reilly notes that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned in his Jackson Hole speech last year that housing was holding back the recovery. A lot has changed since then, so how much emphasis he puts on housing when he delivers his speech on Friday will be telling.

Also out today: Consumer confidence data for August is seen edging up to 66 from 65.9.

And in Tampa, the Republican convention gets underway, while Tropical Storm Isaac continues to build strength in the Gulf of Mexico — and maintains its path directly toward New Orleans, the HIll reports.

Manufacturers lobby for lower taxes. Manufacturers have a message for lawmakers: If you want to create jobs, overhaul the tax code and invest in infrastructure. “It all sort of starts and stops right there,” with corporate tax rates, Harley Davidson CEO Keith Wandell tells the WSJ’s James Hagerty. “We need to be more competitive [with other nations] in that respect.” Stephen Gold, CEO of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, says that some members of his alliance would be willing to give up energy tax credits if they could get a lower corporate tax rate.

Meanwhile, Eaton CEO Alexander Cutler proposes an additional tax of 25 cents a gallon on gasoline to finance infrastructure. And Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan says the underinvestment in infrastructure has forced his company to “Canadian ports to import some parts for our U.S. factories because U.S. ports are so backed up and outdated.”

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW: EUROPE

ECB wants to water down Basel liquidity rule. The ECB is pushing banking regulators to relax a draft liquidity rule so lenders can use some asset-backed securities and loans to businesses in a buffer they must hold against a possible credit squeeze, Bloomberg reports. The ECB thinks a draft version of the liquidity coverage ratio, or LCR, could hamper “efforts to combat the debt crisis by curtailing lending and making it harder for central banks to implement their monetary policies.”

Spain’s economy is even weaker than first thought. Spain’s economic growth has been weaker over the past two years than previously reported, indicating an even deeper slump than earlier official estimates, the FT reports. The economy is expected to continue to shrink over the rest of the year and the next, and the government will this week raise Spain’s sales tax from 18% to 21% — a move some economists say will weigh on already weak domestic consumer demand.

European banks see uptick in business lending. Euro-zone banks ramped up lending to businesses in July, reversing the trend of the previous two months, Dow Jones Newswires reports. But overall, companies have scaled down their production-related investment over the past six months, the ECB said in its latest quarterly lending survey, and lending has remained weak.